"What distinguishes the highly successful advisors from the rest of the crowd? It isn't opportunity, experience, education or even luck."

Driven by Vision

By John Bowen

The financial services industry is emerging from a challenging period, one in which advisors faced a double whammy of rocky markets and rapidly growing competition. It's clear that many advisors have turned the corner and are now entering a growth cycle. Affluent investors want to work with financial advisors, and the ones who are delivering real value to their clients are starting to make good net incomes again.

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But some things are slow to change. In my conversations with advisors all over the country, I see the same thing again and again: Advisors are so caught up in their day-to-day activities that they fail to recognize the larger opportunities out there. They are so engrossed with the nitty-gritty of operational issues, marketing efforts, and staff challenges—activities that suck up all their energy—that they can't step back to see how things could be different.

To be sure, some advisors are experiencing substantial success. In fact, there are approximately 1,200 advisors in the U.S. today earning annual net incomes in excess of $1 million. Contrast this with the vast majority of advisors: The approximately 400,000 in business today earn, on average, net annual incomes of just $75,000.

What distinguishes the highly successful advisors from the rest of the crowd? It isn't opportunity, experience, education, or even luck. Plenty of advisors have plenty of all of these and still never move to the ranks of the ultra-successful. Instead, it's simply the desire and ability to create a vision for the business and the confidence to attempt to make it a reality.

The top advisors recognize that nearly anything is possible—if they want it enough. Even more important, they have made the time to think through carefully what they want and have closely defined that vision in order to share it with those who can help them realize it.

A compelling vision of the future is a powerful business tool that can be used to motivate, unify, and inspire employees, business partners, other constituents—even clients. When it's clear, a vision is an emotional beacon that pulls you and your team continuously toward your objectives. As Stephen Covey so eloquently puts it, each of us must "begin with the end in mind."

In your case, you need to paint a mental picture of what your business will look like five years down the road. You need to create and project a clear image of a possible future that would be compelling to all constituents, including your clients. Visions, by their very nature, are about possibilities. They are about ideals, standards of excellence, expressions of optimism and hope, and future goals to be accomplished.

Along with the rest of the world today, our industry is going through dramatic changes. The stark reality is that most advisors will have to transform their firms from what used to be effective to what will be more effective in the future. Your affluent prospects and clients are demanding that you provide the value-added services they need. You must respond or risk falling further behind and losing the competitive battle to those who are better prepared.

You need to change and evolve with the market if you are going to serve your clients well. And even if you don't care about growing your firm, increased competition and the pressure to lower fees and commissions will erode your business if you just continue to do the same things you have done year after year.

If you fail to establish a clear vision for the future of your firm, you may find yourself focusing on obstacles rather than on your ultimate goals and objectives. You may aimlessly drift through the challenges facing you. A clear and inspiring vision can be the bright light that guides you and your firm through the occasional dark and stormy sea to that level of ultimate success that awaits you—if you are willing to change.

Many studies have shown that when business leaders effectively communicate a compelling vision of the future, their constituents report significantly higher levels of job satisfaction, commitment, loyalty, clarity about organizational values and organizational productivity. Valuable benefits like these have fueled the pervasive use of compelling visions as a powerful, inspiring business tool in organizations of all kinds around the world.

There are three major steps that will optimize your use of a compelling vision of the future:

Envision an exciting future for your business. The first step to changing and growing your business is to create this compelling vision of success—an exciting picture of what your business will look like five years from now, when you have successfully implemented your efforts to serve your clients well. At my firm, we have adapted this process from the seminal leadership book by Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge. Answering the following seven questions will help you create your own inspiring vision of the future for your business.

1. Why am I in this business? Is it to do something with my life—or just for something to do? What do I want to accomplish by being in this business?
2. Why do I want to do this? By pressing yourself to ask why, you can be confident that you have identified your highest purpose for doing what you have chosen to do for a living.
3. What is unique about a future that I would invent for myself? What is the distinctive legacy that I want to leave behind? What unique qualities of my business would make people proud to be a part of it?
4. What common purpose do we seek to achieve in the business? Who are my constituents—the people or groups whom I want to support my vision? What is important to this constituency that I want to enlist in realizing my vision?
5. What goals do I see my business achieving? What are the trends, innovations, and changes that will affect our future? What will my business have to change in order to reach these goals?
6. What symbol, metaphor, mental picture, example or image most vividly represents my unique and ideal future? Representations are a powerful way to express your vision.
7. What ideal future do I envision for my business? What will my business look like in five years if I remain committed to my work?

Communicate your vision. Once you have created a compelling vision of the future for your business, you need to communicate it to those constituents whom you need to help make it into a reality. This is your opportunity to bring your vision to life. Focus your presentation on the values, interests, hopes, aspirations, and dreams of your team and your valued affluent clients.

In order to motivate and even inspire people, your vision must be communicated in a clear and lively manner. It must be expressed in a simple and direct way that moves and touches people. The word "inspire" means "to breathe life into." Leaders breathe life into their visions through the methods they use to communicate them. By using metaphors, analogies, examples, anecdotes, and powerful images coupled with a positive, expressive communication style, you will bring your vision to life for others.

Stay focused on painting the picture of how your business will look in the ideal future that you have envisioned. There is time later to create the strategic plan with specific goals and tactical actions that you will need to begin to work toward turning your dream for your business into a tangible truth.

Act to make your vision a reality. Most important, you must confidently act to make your envisioned future a reality. Rather than creating a laundry list of dozens of must-do activities—something that can quickly overwhelm you and derail your overall efforts—focus on just one or two key actions. Identify the actions that, if you really committed to doing exceptionally well over the next 12 months, would lead to a substantial breakthrough in your business.

Here are just three examples of breakthrough activities:

• Raise your client service to a world-class level. Ensure that every client, at every contact, enjoys a consistent, high-quality experience with your firm. If you guarantee their satisfaction every step of the way, clients will be much more inclined to give you more assets to manage and to steer additional business your way.
• Ask each affluent client for referrals. Few advisors consistently ask their best clients for referrals, yet this is one of the best and easiest ways to grow your practice. Commit to asking each client for referrals for qualified prospects every single time you meet with them.
• Form strategic alliances with other professional advisors. Advisors earning over $1 million have, on average, five separate strategic alliances with other professional advisors, such as CPAs and attorneys. Creating your own strategic alliances will quickly open up affluent markets that you could not otherwise access.

Any one of these breakthrough activities can take your firm to a new level of success. This, in turn, will open up your thinking about the additional opportunities and possibilities that will all lead to achieving your vision. But it begins by initially "breaking out of the box" to pull your attention away from your daily activities and refocus it on the bigger picture—the business that you really want and deserve to have.